Anna Adams: Leftwing Historian Who Opposes the Patriot Act

Sleepy Muhlenberg College leapt to national prominence when the Allentown,
Pennsylvania, university became only the fourth college in the nation to pass
a resolution condemning the Patriot Act. On January 23, 2004, the faculty senate
passed the measure without dissent, by a vote of 100-0. The two-page resolution
paints an Orwellian picture of the controversial homeland security act, alleging,
among other things, that the bill allows campus police to search rooms
and offices without notification to the suspects or college administration.

The only trouble is, the Patriot Act grants no such authorization. In fact,
the resolution makes numerous spurious claims about the Patriot Act  all
of which went unchecked by the faculty senate before that august body set its
imprimatur to the motion. However, their knee-jerk anti-American reaction should
come as no surprise, given the abundant left-wing activism sponsored by this
Lutheran church (ELCA)-affiliated college. From urging students to attend violent
protests at a U.S. military base to hosting a lesbian who defiles the Stars
and Stripes as part of her on-stage performance, Muhlenberg has
become a model of the unpatriotic university....

Muhlenberg Colleges Patriot Act debacle is more easily understood when
one investigates the resolutions sponsor, History professor Anna Adams.
Adams, who admits never having read the Patriot Act, has acknowledged she was
merely acting as a water-carrier for the Left. Dr. Adams told the colleges
official newspaper, The Muhlenberg Weekly, that the leftist Bill of Rights Defense
Commitee contacted her, asking her to introduce an anti-Patriot Act amendment.
The BRDC exists for the sole purpose of getting governments to pass similar
resolutions. As of this writing, four states and 285 cities and counties have
followed suit, although only three other colleges have picked up this banner:
Stanford University, California State University and Appalachian State University.
The BRDC website links to the far-left National Lawyers Guild, the ACLU, People
for the American Way and the National Youth and Student Peace Coalition, which
has coordinated campus antiwar rallies with the Young Communist League.

After Adams began to get negative feedback for offering the fib-filled resolution,
she claims her comrades called to tell her, You should know that you are
considered a hero in the ACLU offices in Washington.

Dr. Adams connections to leftist organizations go beyond the ACLU. She
signed International ANSWERs outlandish Statement Supporting Cuba
Against Bushs Attacks. International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War
and End Racism) is a front group for the Workers World Party, which has ties
to North Korean Communists and Slobodan Milosevic. This blatant piece of pro-Communist
propaganda took Fidel Castros claim that the Bush administration was trying
to topple him at face value  and sided with Castro. Among the gems found
in it:

Over the past 43 years Cuba has suffered the loss of 3,478 of its citizens
from numerous acts of terrorism, invasions, assassinations, assassination attempts,
biological warfare and blockade. The government of one country has perpetrated
these illegal acts against Cuba: the government of the United States.

The trial of the 75 Cuban individuals arrested in March (2003) uncovered
the directing role of the U.S. Interests Section in guiding, financing, and
organizing subversive actions against the Cuban government. This reference
is to Fidel Castros brutal repression of dissidents, including many supporters
of the Varela Project, which seeks a national referendum to recognize freedom
of speech and the press  a motion allowed by the Cuban constitution. These
dissenters, like thousands before them, received show trials and were sent off
to the gulags. And the credulous Dr. Adams signed a petition urging Castro to
throw away the key.

The statement further alleges Bush wants to topple Castro and install 
a puppet regime, and calls Castros barbaric longevity a testament
to the popular support of the Cuban government. The Marxist rant closes
by insisting Bush end the economic embargo against Cuba and free the Cuban Five
for trying to stop Miami-based terrorism against their people. (According
to the Associated Press, the Cuban Five were arrested in 1998 for trying
to infiltrate U.S. military bases and Cuban exile groups in South Florida.)

Adams has a soft spot for Iraqi madmen, as well. She, along with 50 other Muhlenberg
faculty members (including Lisa Perfetti), signed an article in The Muhlenberg
Advocate (the campus alternative newspaper) entitled, Would
You Fight, Kill and Die to Overthrow Saddam Hussein in Iraq? In this open
letter to their own students, Adams and company state flatly, President
Bush is using the death, tragedy, and sorrow of September 11, 2001, as a pretext
for invading Iraq. The war on Iraq constitutes a clear violation
of international law. In the event of our occupation, Muhlenbergs
leftist Cassandras warn, The likelihood of future terrorist attacks here
will increase sharply. Moreover, many, many Iraqi civilians will
die as a result of the U.S. militarys use of overwhelming force
 primarily aerial bombing from such an altitude that it is impossible
to hit only military or strategic targets.

Adams did not let the issue go. Writing in the official school paper The Muhlenberg
Weekly, just a week after the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Adams relates
that while traveling abroad, I felt ashamed to be an American. Does this
make me unpatriotic? She went on to remove all doubt, telling her trusting
students:

In order to protect its economic interests, the U.S. has often used the
concepts of democracy and freedom as justification for foreign interventions
that undermined freedom and democracy Communism is dead, but the U.S. has
found a new enemy to justify its military buildup and desire to control the
world's resources.

Adams screed was made to look sensible only in contrast to another essay
that appeared the same day, written by Dr. Giacomo Gambino, Associate Professor
of Political Science. (What else?) Gambino asserted this war, waged to
preserve U.S. military hegemony in the world, will confirm the Presidents
messianic ambitions and generate resentment by making U.S.
GIs an occupying army. Gambino then scribbled the ultimate in moral
equivalency: Last week's opening salvos on Baghdad have now revealed the
twin specters of our new age  terrorism and the crusade to eradicate it
at any cost. Gambino and Adams clearly drink from the same poisoned wells.

Dr. Anna Adams also confesses bringing her anti-American bias into the classroom.
In her course Human Rights and the Americas, which she team teaches
with Dr. Joan Marx, Adams concentrates on countries that are notorious
human rights abusers, such as Chile (and) Guatemala..., said Adams. Additionally,
some focus will be given to the United States' role in violations of human rights
in the Americas. Apparently, Adams could not find abusers
in Cuba, Nicaragua or Grenada, just beleaguered pro-American nations locked
in a mortal struggle with Marxism. And in Adams world, all these outrages
ultimately redound to the Great Satan, the United States of America....